3 custodial killings in Guj: Monitoring body

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Courtappointed monitoring authority set up to oversee investigations into 17 cases of alleged fake encounter in Gujarat between 2002 and 2006 has disclosed to the top court that in three instances it probed, the allegation of custodial killings have been proved.

The chairman of the monitoring authority, retired Justice H S Bedi of the Supreme Court, in his report has recommended prosecution of the nine Gujarat Police officers on the charges of murder.

Justice Bedi in his report, which was submitted to the top court in February last year, said he applied “two tests while evaluating evidence in these case. First, where the police version seemed deeply suspicious and difficult to believe and second, where the evidence was of quality that in case a trail was held there was a reasonable chance of conviction”.

The chairman, in his report, has said in the case of the killing of Sameer Khan Pathan alleged to be a Jaish-e-mohammed (JEM) operative and suspected to be attempting to carry out the assassination then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was fake.

Sameer Khan Pathan was killed in custody in October 2002 in Ahmedabad and the police had then narrated a story that he had received training in Pakistan and was a JEM operative.

Justice Bedi, says that there was “something drastically amiss in the death and investigation into the death of Sameer Khan Pathan”.

Similarly in the cases of Kasam Jafar, allegedly a dreaded member of Mumbai’s Irani gang and Haji Ismail, a smuggler from Jamnagar, the authority has come to a conclusion they are custodial deaths.